A December checklist for domain name investors.
It’s December 1, which means the end of the year is rapidly approaching.
With that in mind, here’s a checklist of things for domain name investors to complete before the end of the year.
1. Run a preliminary income statement. Knowing where you stand so far this year will help you optimize for taxes…and estimate your bill.
2. Renew, renew, renew. Depending on the tax regime where you live and your accounting method (e.g. cash accounting), now is a great time to pull expenses forward by renewing domain names that expire in the next six months. This assumes, of course, that you had a good year. If not, you might want to delay these expenses until 2016.
3. Buy a new computer and other assets. Again, this depends on your country. In the U.S., now is a great time to buy any assets for your business so you can take the Section 179 depreciation this year. Eyes on a new laptop? A sit-stand desk? Buy it now to deduct it from your 2015 revenue.
4. Close out sales. If you’re currently negotiating to buy or sell domain names, timing at the end of the year is key. You can delay a big sale until 2016 if your tax bill is already higher-than-usual in 2015, or close on it now if you’re falling into a lower-than-usual tax bracket. You can also use timing to your advantage when negotiating with people that also want to get a transaction done on either side of January 1.
5. Get your portfolio in order. Forget New Year’s Resolutions and get your portfolio organized before the end of the year. There are some great tools for organizing your portfolio and staying on top of expirations. My favorite is Watch My Domains Pro.
6. Review automatic subscriptions. Companies love subscription services because people often renew them even if they aren’t using them anymore. Now is a great time to review all of your automated subscription services and decide which ones to keep in 2016.
7. Review your strategy. Use downtime over the holidays to review your results in 2015 and set a strategy for the start of 2016. What worked? What didn’t?
Frank Schilling says
8. Open a Uniregistry account and get to know the system.
Acro says
#9 Get comfortable shoes (ie, one size bigger) for NamesCon 2016 😀
Al says
#10 Come up with ideas to help people with their new year’s resolutions when January hits … and cash in right from the beginning of 2016. A small window of time but profits can be big.
adam says
#1 Donate some of your profits to a charitable cause.
Today is giving Tuesday. A perfect day for thinking about that.
It could work out to be a nice deduction for your income taxes too.